Bill Dayhttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/16543/all
enTremor Launches VideoHub Connect, Its Own DSPhttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremor-launches-videohub-connect-its-own-dsp-152635
Sam Thielman<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/video-hub-hed-2013.jpg"> <p>
A few weeks after its IPO and even fewer weeks after announcing that it was switching to an <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremor-video-goes-stream-only-abandoning-banner-ads-151487" target="_blank">all-in-stream, all the time</a> model, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremor-enjoys-strong-q2-revenue-151782" target="_blank">Tremor Video</a> is set to announce today that it will launch its own DSP, called <a href="http://videohub.com/" target="_blank">VideoHub</a> Connect, a bidding and buying feature that will incorporate proprietary ad technology much like that seen at programmatic buying platforms like Rocket Fuel, which made <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/rocket-fuel-lives-its-name-first-day-trading-152615" target="_blank">headlines</a> last week by knocking the ceiling out of its initial IPO prices (the stock was priced at $29 and broke $62 on its first day of trading).</p>
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The technology, said Tremor CEO Bill Day, is important. &quot;We want to make a distinction between real-time bidding and programmatic,&quot; Day told Adweek. &quot;Buying inventory cheaply at scale is not a recipe for success,&quot; the exec said in a press release sent to reporters today, and while that&#39;s certainly true, it&#39;s a sea change in the thinking both at Tremor and across the Web. &quot;Most people see programmatic as a race to the bottom&mdash;how do I pay less? how do I pay less? You want to decide whether you want a luxury car or an economy car before you can decide on the kind of price you want.&quot;</p>
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The new tools on VideoHub will allow buyers to define their proposed outlay, the goal for their campaign, and a few other variables, but the point is to decrease, not increase, the level of tinkering a buyer needs to do to optimize a campaign. &quot;Our goal isn&#39;t to create another layer, it&#39;s to create a better layer,&quot; said Day.</p>
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The new services are a serious bid to get television money into the Web video game&mdash;part of the reason Web inventory has been so cheap by comparison is that it&#39;s quite difficult to buy. There are hundreds, not a few dozen, desirable publishers to choose from, and millions of hours of content between them with demographic choices as multifarious as the programs themselves.</p>
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&quot;Premium programmatic&mdash;it comes up again and again,&quot; Day said with a laugh. &quot;It takes two of the biggest buzzwords and combines them into a single uber-buzzword.&quot; But that&#39;s what Tremor hopes to capitalize on. It remains to be seen exactly how premium the inventory is&mdash;inventory on exchanges has historically been characterized in less than flattering terms (&quot;remnant;&quot; &quot;leftover&quot;). But Day says there&#39;s a value proposition here for the publishers, too. &quot;The rationale for any publisher to work with DSP or a network is that they&#39;re getting something they can&#39;t get on their own,&quot; he said&mdash;access to the parts of Tremor&#39;s client base, that won&#39;t show up unless they can buy across multiple publishers in a TV-like way, presumably. &quot;And we have too strong a history of working with these publishers exclusively.&quot;</p>
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Along with YuMe, Tremor had <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremors-ipo-bumpy-start-its-still-necessary-150803" target="_blank">a rough start </a>to its IPO, but (if the quality of the ad tech is as good as its competitors&#39;) this move could greatly improve its fortunes on the stock market. Andrew Pancer, COO of Dstillery (an ad targeting/data firm) said the success of the Rocket Fuel IPO was a good indicator of where the market is headed. &quot;I think [that] is a total validation of move toward programmatic buying. It shows that the investment in ad tech and particularly data targeting is starting to pay off,&quot; he said. &quot;Unlike recent IPOs&hellip;I wouldn&#39;t really consider Tremor and Yume ad tech companies&quot;</p>
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Tremor is hoping to change that perception today. &quot;The future of video is going to be driven by television&mdash;[by the moment when the agencies] take their TV budgets and start to merge them from a planning and buying standpoint with online video.&quot; So Tremor is trying to make sure agencies are able to clearly see the effect of their buys&mdash;in terms of reach, &quot;brand lift,&quot; to use Day&#39;s term, and other non-smoke, non-mirrors metrics. &quot;The whole point of programmatic is to make digital easier.&quot;</p>
TechnologyAndrew PancerBill DayDstilleryIPOsrocket fuelSam ThielmanVideoVideoHubYuMeMon, 23 Sep 2013 04:00:16 +0000152635 at http://www.adweek.comTremor Enjoys Strong Q2 Revenuehttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremor-enjoys-strong-q2-revenue-151782
Sam Thielman<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/tremor-video-hed2-2013.jpg"> <p>
This ought to shut people up.</p>
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Tremor Video had revenue growth of 41 percent in the most recent quarter year over year. It&#39;s good news for the video network, which recently announced it would be <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremor-video-goes-stream-only-abandoning-banner-ads-151487" target="_blank">getting rid of</a> the last few bits of auto-playing banner-video inventory and now is entirely in-stream.</p>
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CEO Bill Day said the network&#39;s engagement metrics helped drive growth in Q2. &quot;[Your content] may be delivering hits brilliantly, but your creative isn&#39;t engaging with your target audience and that&#39;s a problem,&quot; he said. In-stream revenue accounted for $34.4 million of $35.5 million in revenue. Losses were less pronounced, as well&mdash;the net loss was $0.3 million versus last year&#39;s $4.8 million.</p>
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The company predicted it will be profitable this year, with revenue for the full year projected in the $133.7 million to $135.7 million range.</p>
TechnologyAmazon.comBill DayEarningsTremorVideoSam ThielmanFri, 09 Aug 2013 01:33:09 +0000151782 at http://www.adweek.comTremor Video Goes In-Stream Only, Abandoning Banner Adshttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremor-video-goes-stream-only-abandoning-banner-ads-151487
Sam Thielman<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/tremor-video-hed-2013.jpg"> <p>
No more banner video for Tremor. The company will announce this afternoon it is moving entirely to in-stream video for the foreseeable future, having phased out its last banner video projects.</p>
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Tremor CEO Bill Day told Adweek that the progression is a natural one. Last year, Day said, banner video accounted for a mere 4 percent of its revenue and over the past few months it has worked with legacy clients to move toward in-stream-only ads.</p>
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The impetus is a fairly simple one. In-stream video is easier to measure, has much higher engagement than takeovers or banner videos and fits easily with the kind of television-style buying toward which the digital video industry is trying to move.</p>
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There are problems with selling TV-style ads on digital platforms, of course. For one thing, there&#39;s an expectation (however unrealistic) that since digital buys are served entirely by computers, data on reach, frequency and engagement will be easier to provide. <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/when-will-there-be-one-metric-all-screens-149781" target="_blank">Not so</a> for those first two measurements. Nielsen and comScore rely heavily on panel measurement for their data sets, which are the de-facto industry standard, given the lack of available alternatives.</p>
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Day said Tremor would continue to provide a metric that overlays the reach and frequency data, and as both third-party and company-provided data improve, he expects to see deeper co-dependency between TV and digital video. &quot;There&#39;s an understanding that panel data is not 100 percent precise, but the point isn&#39;t to discredit it,&quot; Day said. &quot;The point is to extend it. Beyond reach and frequency, you still have these open questions&mdash;did it work, did it make an impact and what kind of an impact did it make?&quot;</p>
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Tremor serves video on platforms run by A+E Networks and Viacom&mdash;that&#39;s A&amp;E, History, Bio, Lifetime, MTV, Comedy Central and Nick at Nite, among others. The company&#39;s products emphasize interactivity with the stream in a way that TV can&#39;t yet. There&#39;s <a href="http://demo.tremormedia.com/creative/cat/demo/index.php?cu=09455&amp;w=600&amp;&amp;misc=1315489133&amp;rand=9zvov" target="_blank">this L&#39;Or&eacute;al, spot</a>, for example, where a mouseover triggers a button in the corner; on mobile, the visuals <a href="http://demo.tremormedia.com/creative/cat/demo/index.php?cu=15940" target="_blank">are tweaked</a>&nbsp;accordingly.</p>
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Tremor&#39;s IPO earlier this summer made headlines, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/tremors-ipo-bumpy-start-its-still-necessary-150803" target="_blank">partly because</a> its share price came in lower than expected, but its relationships with big-ticket premium video providers remain solid and its business model just got both simpler and more progressive. The company&#39;s S-1 said outright that Tremor &quot;specialize[s] in delivering in-stream video advertisements, which are served to viewers immediately prior to or during the publisher&#39;s content when viewers are most engaged. This is in contrast to traditional in-banner video advertising, which is served on the periphery of publisher content where viewers may not be directing their attention.&quot;</p>
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Now, Tremor is putting its money where its mouth is and focusing entirely on the sector of the digital video world&mdash;premium content&mdash;that looks most familiar to advertisers. In that same document, the wisdom of focusing on in-stream seemed borne out by the company&#39;s financials. As Tremor&#39;s revenue derived from banner video decreased, its overall revenue grew. From January to March 2013, revenue was up to $24 million from $15.7 million for the same period in the prior year.</p>
TechnologyA+E NetworksBill DaycomScoreL'OréalNielsenSam ThielmanTRMRViacomVideoMon, 29 Jul 2013 18:54:45 +0000151487 at http://www.adweek.com